


Don't Come Back

by LetsGankIt



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen, Pre-Series
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:50:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1714502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LetsGankIt/pseuds/LetsGankIt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The night Sam leaves for Stanford. 18 yr old Sam. 22 yr old Dean.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Come Back

Dean and John walked into the house wearing big grins and a slight spattering of blood. It decorated their shirts like wayward paint and was smeared along the edge of Dean’s chin. The adrenaline pumped through his veins only just now showing the beginning signs of disappearing. The crash was inevitable but for now, the high was unbelievable. Dean flicked on the lights and was startled by Sam’s figure on the tattered old couch. Dean swore, once, and then said, “That’s creepy, Sammy. Why in the hell are you sitting on the couch in the dark?”

“I was waiting for you to get home,” Sammy replied. His knees were apart with his elbows resting on them and his hands clasped in the middle. It was the same position he’d been sitting in when he’d told Dean that he knew about mom’s death, when he told Dean about reading Dad’s journal, and when he’d finally come back to the house after running away and explained his reasons for doing so. Sam in this position was the beginning of some of Dean’s worst memories.

Dean froze just inside the doorway even as he heard John shut the door quietly behind them. “Waiting for us?”

“Since last night when the two of you said you’d be home,” Sam said with a firm nod. “Been waiting here, worried, since then.”

“In the dark?” Dean asked, his lips curled up but he couldn’t bring himself to really smile or laugh.

Sam sat up, his posture straightening, and he grabbed a white envelope that Dean hadn’t noticed before. He played with the torn edge without saying a word and then sighed. “Yeah, here I was rushing back home from Bobby’s so as to make sure the two of you wouldn’t worry about me and instead I got to be the one to worry about you.”

“What do you mean you went to Bobby’s?” John asked. There was tension in his voice that made Dean remember how their last run-in with Bobby had gone.

Sam held up the envelope. Dean didn’t know what it was but he already knew he hated it. “I went to go and pick up some mail. I couldn’t exactly get it sent to me directly. Our address changes every other week.”

“What’s this all about?” John asked. It was more of a demand really. John rarely asked for anything.

Sam stood with the proud shoulders and back that John had. It was an act that always made Dean proud when he saw it on Sam and disgusted when he saw it on John. Sam played with the envelope again and spoke clearly, “It’s my acceptance letter....to college.”

“College,” John repeated, like the word wasn’t a part of his vocabulary and he was struggling to associate it with something that was. “What did you apply to college for?”

Sam scoffed. “To get a life, Dad. I want to be someone someday. I want to make something of myself.”

Dean sucked in a sharp breath. The words, Dean knew they weren’t meant to hurt them but they dug in like a rusty knife. Sam had always been the one with a path to take, a chance at something great and Dean was, well, Dean. “You’re leaving.”

John snorted, pulled his gun from the waist of his jeans, and threw it on the table as he spoke. “Sammy boy ain’t going nowhere, son. See, what our spoiled little brat over there doesn’t realize is that the real world is cruel and nobody cares about what you do. College costs a pretty penny.”

“Not for me it doesn’t,” Sam said. The glare he directed towards his father was one that was fully and truly Sam. Cold and hot at the same time. “Stanford’s going to give me a full ride. No tuition, no room and board, no fees. I get four years without coughing up a single dime.”

Dean pulled his eyes from Sam just long enough to see his father’s reaction. His cockiness faded into a moment of shock that disappeared in an instant to be replaced by anger, more than anger maybe. Rage. “So, what? You get yourself into a fancy college, pull yourself out of the slums where your family resides, make yourself better than us?”

“I never said those things, Dad. You did,” Sam replied.

“You want to make something of yourself but you’re too much of a goddamned coward to stay with your family and protect the world, avenge your mother?” John’s voice rose.

“I never knew my mother!” Sam yelled. There was silence for a moment. Sam took a breath and then continued, “Mom died a long, long time ago and eighteen years later we still have no leads, no trail, and no bad guy. We’re running across the country saving everyone but Mom. I refuse to give up any more of my life for the sake of someone who died and left us with pain and misery.”

“Don’t you dare speak about your mother that way!” John demanded.

“Sammy,” Dean said. His voice was quiet but even he could hear the despair in it. He cleared his voice once and then again. It didn’t feel like the lump was going away anytime soon.

Sam took a moment to look at Dean. It was like he struggled to face him. A sick part of Dean hoped that Sam felt bad about the pain on Dean’s face. He thought it would serve him right. “Dean, I’m sorry I-”

“Don’t tell your brother sorry like it’s all an accident. You’re selfish, Sam. Selfish enough to talk bad about your mother, selfish enough to give up hunting and saving people, and worst of all you’re selfish enough to abandon your family,” John said.

“You’re right, Dad. I’m doing this all for me. I don’t want to do this, I don’t want to be a hunter anymore. This life, it sucks,” Sam replied.

“Sorry that my best wasn’t good enough for you,” John said sarcastically.

Sam snorted. “If this was your best I’d hate to see you at your worst. You’ve always put the job before Dean and I. We’ve been to more schools that I can count, we’ve been jilted from hunter’s house to hunter’s house because you couldn’t bother to even be polite, you let your oldest son father your kid, Dad. Hell, Dean has been more of a father to me my whole life than you have ever been. A broken twenty-two year old watching out for his eighteen year old little brother.”

“Broken, huh?” John asked. “You think you’re older brother is broken.”

It was clear by the look on Sam’s face that he hadn’t meant to say that. Now, however, it was too late. The words were out there and Sam could do nothing but follow through. “Dean is a mess, a trained soldier and your pawn. You say jump and he asks how high? I’m not sure Dean can even function without orders anymore. You put a leash on my brother the night you told him to carry me out of that fire, Dad, and I don’t think the dog will survive without it.”

Dean took a physical step back. How could he not when everything Sam said felt like a punch to the gut. The words were harsh and cold and filled with the burning ice cold power of anger pushed down for too long. His vision blurred as tears welled up in his eyes. They never fell, of course, because Dean wouldn’t let himself cry – especially not in front of John. “Sammy, you can’t leave.”

“Damn straight he can’t,” John said. Clearly John was not having the same reaction to this as Dean. Maybe John couldn’t see the resolve in Sam’s eyes. Dean could see it though and even though he knew that nothing he could say would keep Sam from leaving that night, he tried. Oh Lord, he did try. “I’m his father and I-“

“Have no right to tell me what to do,” Sam said. He chuckled and looked away. “You know, I knew you wouldn’t remember. I thought , maybe Dean but definitely not Dad. I held out hope of course, stupid but true. I hoped you’d remember.”

“Remember what?” John asked cruelly.

“Today is Sam’s birthday,” Dean choked out.

John rolled his eyes. “Celebrating birthdays is a ridiculous custom for those who want to count how many years closer they are to death.”

“It’s a normal custom,” Sam said. “People do it all over, everywhere.”

“Is that what this is all about?” John asked. “We aren’t normal enough for you?”

Sam bended over to pick up a duffel bag. It was big and stuffed to the point that Dean could see the zipper straining. If he had to guess, everything Sam owned was probably in that bag. Dean took another step back and bumped into the door. “You can’t leave, Sam.”

“Get out of my way, Dean,” Sam said. He wasn’t threatening or pleading. It wasn’t a request or a demand. He was calm and gentle and he looked into Dean’s eyes with all the determination Dean had watched build up in his little brother during years of being controlled and contained. Dean would call this look, this non-threatening, non-pleading, non-requesting or demanding look, Sam’s puppy dog eyes. It was the look that said he hated it, didn’t want it, but he needed it and you were going to give it to him just to get the look off of his face.

Dean barely recognized the fact that he was moving until he was out of the way and Sam had opened the door. John’s voice boomed like the rolling thunder of a Storm. “Go then, Sammy boy. Get on out of here and leave your family. But let me tell you something. You walk out of this door, you leave us tonight, and you better be damn sure that you never come back here again. Don’t come back.”

Sam didn’t look back, didn’t tense or flinch. He froze in the doorway. From where Dean was standing, he could watch Sam’s face. He could see the determination turn into doubt and consideration. He could see fear and anger war in his eyes. Without a word Sam walked the rest of the way out of the house and closed the door not gently but without slamming it either. Dean didn’t take more than five seconds to get his body moving again and run after him.

By that time, Sam had already made it to the street. It glistened in the moonlight where the rainwater that had gathered between the bumps and cracks reflected the pale light. Had this been another situation, a different night, Dean might have commented on the subtle beauty of it all. But this was the situation and it was this night and not another. Dean couldn’t have given two shits about the moonlight and the way it made the street shine. “Sammy! Wait!”

Sam stopped and turned. “What Dean?”

“You can’t leave us,” Dean said. It sounded like he was begging. He wasn’t because Dean Winchester didn’t beg but it sounded like he was. “You can’t leave me.”

Sam sighed. “Come with me.”

Dean was taken aback. “What?”

“Come with me,” Sam repeated. He cast a dark look over Dean’s shoulder to the house, to their father. “Our lives don’t have to be his. We don’t have to do this forever.”

“What we’re doing here is good,” Dean replied.

Sam nodded. “It is good, for everyone but us. When do we get to stop living for everyone else and start living for us? When does this crusade for vengeance finally end?”

“When we catch the bastard that killed Mom,” Dean said.

Sam shook his head. “We haven’t looked for that….whatever it was…in a long time. Mom is gone, Dean. That’s a fact.”

Dean wasn’t making Sam understand so he tried a different tactic. “Look, Sammy, I know that you and Dad don’t always get along real well and I’m not sure what argument this is stemming from but it’s nothing that can’t be fixed.”

“There was no argument,” Sam said. “I want to go my own, separate way.”

Dean felt like he was dying. It was like a nightmare brought to life, an illusion created with the sole purpose of ripping his heart from his chest. “Sammy, please.”

“Come with me,” Sam said. His voice said it would be the last time he offered this.

Dean searched Sam’s face. He searched and searched, desperate to find something there for him, a hope. There was nothing but steely resolve and heated anger towards the man they’d left alone in the house and maybe, just a little towards Dean himself. Dean looked over his shoulder at the run down house they’d been staying in. Really it looked a lot like every run down house they’d stayed in while on a hunt. The shutters were falling off, the roof was barely holding together, and the paint had peeled away to almost nothing but worn wood. A heartbeat of wonder and Dean almost said yes. It lasted only a heartbeat though and when Dean turned his head back to face Sam all he could say was, “I can’t.”

“I didn’t think you could,” Sam said with a heavy sigh. He put a hand on Dean’s shoulder and looked him right in the eyes. “One day, when I can take care of everything. I’m coming back for you and when that time comes, you’re going to say yes.”

Dean replied with a grim chuckle. “Don’t be so sure, Sammy.”

“Don’t let Dad make us strangers,” Sam said and with that he turned and started walking back to the road.

“Wait,” Dean said. Sam turned just as Dean shoved his hand into his jeans pocket and pulled out a shiny set of keys. He paused to look at them and then tossed them in the air. Effortlessly, Sam caught them. Dean motioned to the black Chevy Impala. “Take Baby, leave her at Bobby’s. It’s not safe to be walking around in the dark.”

Indecision crossed Sam’s face but eventually common sense won out. He nodded, climbed into the car, and drove away. Dean watched his brother drive away until he could no longer see the taillights. He walked into the house and pretended Sam hadn’t carved a hole into his chest. John looked past him out the open window. “What happened? Where’s the Impala?”

Dean saw red. John’s youngest son had walked away, left them, and Dad could only ask about the damn Impala? Before he knew what he was doing, he decked John in the jaw. It didn’t take him to the ground but his head snapped to the side. He reached up to touch his lip where Dean already saw a smidgen of blood. Dean looked at his hand, surprised at its action. He didn’t see the backhand that his father sent him. The surprise is what did him in. Dean stumbled backwards a few steps and grabbed his cheek. John glared at him. “You hit me again and you better be damn sure I don’t ever get back up cause I’ll come get your ass and you’ll learn what pain is really like. You hear me?”

“Yes, sir,” Dean said. The response was so automatic that Dean doubted he really meant it. It was simply the only answer you ever gave John Winchester.

John jerked his chin towards the stairs. “Go on up and get some sleep. We’ve got a shitload of things to do tomorrow including, apparently, picking up my damn car.”

Dean wanted to say that the Impala was his car and that he’d had every right to let Sam use it. Instead he nodded, mumbled a quiet yes, sir, and went upstairs with his head hung low. Dean had never been much for arguing with John but when he had, he’d always gone in Sam’s honor. Without Sam, what was even the point of fighting. Dean climbed into the bed wondering if he’d ever get to sleep but between the adrenaline crash and the fact that Dean had all but given up…it was mere minutes and Dean was asleep. In his dreams he relieved the moment over and over and over again. When he woke it was like he’d never slept at all.

**Author's Note:**

> I would have loved to see this scene on Supernatural. It's, in a way, one of the most important moments in their lives and we never got to see how it went down. Sam and Dean's lives prior to the series starting has always been interesting to me. I hope I did this scene justice.


End file.
